


Going Under

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF Dean Winchester, Crying Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester in Trouble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Dean Winchester, Manhandling, Rescue, Sam and Cas Hug Dean, Scared Dean Winchester, Tied-Up Dean Winchester, non-consensual nudity, threat of drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 09:32:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dean finds too late that he’s not hunting a vampire, or a ghoul, or some cult kidnapping and murdering people to bring about the end of the world.It’s just a guy, not a monster, except...Sometimes, humans can be monsters too.





	Going Under

**Author's Note:**

> Please see the end notes for additional content alert (and spoilers).

There’s no headache in the world like a chloroform headache, Dean thinks, and then he rolls over onto his side and pukes.

All he has - had - in his stomach was some water and half a power bar so it doesn’t take long, and then he slumps back over, panting, woolly mouthed and weak.

Lying with his hands cuffed behind him is less than comfortable, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of choice.

Same with his ankles, rope knotting them together so tight he’s scared to look down in case his feet are purple and blown.

And, of course, since he’s naked and anything he could have used to get loose is in his jeans, or his coat pocket, or the hem of his shirt, he has no chance of escape.

Not yet, at least. 

Because Sam and Cas will know he’s missing by now - Cas, certainly, since Dean’s been praying to him non stop from the moment he woke up, telling him what happened, describing the room he’s in, the guy who took him…

The door opens, and there he is, big brawny sack of shit, pushing in a trolley with a TV on top, one of those old, chunky things Dean remembers from so many motels.

Willard Brown.

Willard whistles, off key, and then parks the trolley in the corner, making sure it’s in Dean’s line of sight.

Or it is when he tucks his boot under Dean’s shoulder, and flips him onto his side.

“Want you to watch this, _Agent_ Nicks. This is what you wanted to know, right? What I did with those missing students? The double glazing salesman? That charity collector? I said I’d show you. I keep my word.”

Dean doesn’t really want to know anymore, but it’s not like he has any say. 

He glares at the Willard’s back as he slides a video tape into the unit one shelf down from the set - who the hell uses VCR these days anyway - and then the screen flickers to life.

The date/time stamp is one year ago, nearly to the day, and Dean looks at a narrow wooden footpath, that stops just at the edge of what looks like one of those kid’s sandpits.

Except….the surface looks wrong, somehow, like water instead of sand, and Dean feels a little sick again as he hears screaming and begging over the crappy speakers on the set.

Willard comes into view, and he’s carrying a woman over his shoulder.

Like Dean, she’s naked.

Like Dean, she’s bound hand and foot (ropes for both, Dean guesses Willard just figured to use the cuffs Dean had on him).

Willard’s whistling to himself on the tape too, that same fingers-down-a-blackboard tune, and he heads down the footpath, right to the edge.

The woman’s whimpering now, and Dean makes a silent promise to himself that when he gets out of this, and he will get out of this, he’s going to kill this bastard.

Willard stops, reaches up as if to adjust how the woman’s lying, and then just…

Tosses her.

She hits the sand on her back, and immediately starts to sink.

Dean watches as Willard grabs one of those cheap ass camping chairs, and sits himself down in it. 

He leans forward, forearms on his knees, and just looks on.

The woman… Dean thinks maybe she’s the first victim, Miranda Welsh… thrashes and panics and screams so loud that his ears hurt.

 _Stop fighting_ , he thinks. _Dammit, just stop_! But it’s pointless. This happened a year ago, and no one has seen Miranda since.

Until now, no one knew what had happened to her.

Dean tries to look away, no desire to see her last desperate moments, but Willard catches him, and tucks one big hand under his chin, and rests the other on his forehead.

“Better keep watching,” he says. “There’s other stuff I can do with you before it’s your turn.”

So Dean does.

And while he does he prays to Cas, tells him they better hurry the fuck up and find him.

++

It’s a long tape. Willard comes, and he goes, but by then Dean can’t _not_ watch.

He’s committing each of those faces to his memory because somebody ought to know how they died, that this shithole is where they’re buried; somebody needs to know because their families do too.

And because Dean’s studying how Willard does it every time. His technique never varies, no matter the gender or size or weight of the victim.

He’s a big guy; Dean’s pretty sure he could lift his own weight and not even bust a sweat.

But there has to be something; sure, he knows Sam and Cas have to be closing in on him by now, but the date on the video tape is kind of like a countdown for how long he has to live.

They’re at last week, now, and Dean’s pretty sure the guy currently sobbing as he sinks out of view is the last person to go missing.

The screen goes black, and the tape pops out of the VCR.

Like magic, Willard returns, and leans against the wall, arms folded, staring down at Dean.

“I never killed an FBI agent before,” he says. “Real or fake. Maybe you can tell me why the hell you came looking for trouble, son. While you’ve got air, anyway.”

Dean props himself up on his elbows.

 _Cas, anytime now would be real good_.

But aloud, all he says, is “Fuck you.”

Maybe not pithy but he’s out of time and he doesn’t have any smart comebacks.

He’s fucking terrified.

Willard shrugs. “I think you’ll probably beg,” he says. “Once you’re up to your neck. None of them go quiet.”

Dean tries to kick as Willard bends to grab him, but he’s an expert at this by now, and just catches the rope around Dean’s ankles, tugs him closer, and then hauls him onto his feet.

Dean grunts as Willard’s shoulder digs into his stomach, and then the bastard starts to whistle as he carries him out the door.

++

When they get near the edge, Dean knows he’s down to desperation tactics.

He’s seen how Willard tosses everybody in, aiming to dump them at an angle, making it harder for them to stay afloat.

But they were civilians, and civilians panic and Dean has no intention of doing the same.

As Willard slides him backward, Dean’s stomach and then chest chafing on his clothes, he sees a chance and takes it.

His head is right next to Willard’s ear, and he digs in his teeth and holds on.

Willard screams, and blood wells up, hot and coppery into Dean’s mouth.

He gags, but doesn’t let go. Willard wails as he pummels at Dean, reaches up awkwardly to grab his hair, tears out a fistful as he tries to pry Dean off.

And then _he_ panics, thrashing and cursing, and he shoves Dean off more than throws him.

It means Dean gets to choose how he goes in, more or less, and it’s not entirely feet first.

He lands mostly on his back, with a kind of soft plop, and almost immediately sinks a couple of inches.

But then he stops.

Willard’s still screaming, and Dean risks turning his head slowly to look at him.

The bastard’s got one hand clutched to the side of his face, blood streaming between his fingers, and he bends down to pick up something from the wooden deck.

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Come get me then,” Dean says, and he almost grins at the way Willard’s eyes bulge out of his head.

Dean’s too far for him to reach now, to pull back to the path and then throw back in or even manually push under.

It’s not as good as not being in the quicksand at all, but he can hold out here until his angel and his brother come for him.

If he stays calm.

He takes some deep breaths to help, and to stay buoyant. His feet, his lower legs are still trapped, and that could be an issue in a while, but his main concern is keeping on the surface, and if he can do that he can wait this out.

Willard stomps away, and Dean stays still, breathes, and keeps praying, urging Cas to hurry.

And then something plops into the quicksand next to him.

Dean whips his head around, too fast, feels threatening ripples in the gunk beneath him.

He freezes again, stabilises, and then watches Willard pick up another rock from the pile heaped at his feet.

Each one is the size of his fist, and Dean tries not to flinch as the next one misses him by inches.

He can feel the effect. The quicksand gurgles, and he definitely sinks a little further in.

Willard laughs. “Yeah, you fuck, I’ll get you.”

He might. His aim is shit, but he only has to be lucky once; a direct hit to the head would take him out, Dean knows, but even hitting him on the chest or stomach could break ribs, bust something inside of him, and if he struggles to breathe or gets too sapped this will be over fast.

Not to mention even his misses have a consequence. It’s the reason why people who stay still last longer when trapped in quicksand; struggling just increases the effect, destabilising the mix, and dragging them under faster.

Even if Dean stays perfectly still, if Willard upsets things enough then he’ll still go under.

A third rock glances his thigh, the pain sharp, and Dean feels blood well up immediately.

Nothing broken, though, thank fuck, but it’s like Willard’s found his range.

“Gonna crack a rib with this one,” he says, and then he reaches back to throw it as hard as he can.

It never leaves his hand.

Cas’s grip must be like iron around Willard’s wrist because he screams as the angel uses it to push him onto his knees, and then Sam’s gun is bruising his temple.

“Please, move,” Sam says. “Go on.”

Then he looks out to where Dean is trapped. “What happened to waiting for us at the diner?”

Dean shoots his brother a look. “Now? You actually want to have this conversation now?”

“No, we don’t,” Cas says, and glares at them both in turn, like naughty children.

Then he raises his hand, as if reaching out for Dean, and his eyes glow with Grace.

It’s like something surrounds Dean then, as if he’s being gently held, and his body is slowly pulled towards the deck.

Cas picks him up as if Dean’s weight and nudity are of no account, and sets him down carefully, several feet from Willard.

He waves a hand at the ropes and the cuffs, and they fall away, and then a gentle stroke of his fingers over the wound on Dean’s thigh and it’s gone too.

Cas helps him get up, offers him his coat, and then turns to look at Willard with the full on soldier-of-heaven effect.

Willard promptly pisses himself.

“What should we do with him?” Sam asks.

Dean knows what he wants to do with him. Throw the fucker in the pit like he did with all the people he watched die afraid and in pain.

But he doesn’t deserve to share their resting place, even temporarily, because Dean’s going to make sure the authorities know those people are there so they can be dug up and taken home.

He grabs the cuffs that were around his wrists, and drives his knee into Willard’s shoulder, knocking him onto his front.

Sam’s foot in the guy’s back holds him still long enough for Dean to restrain him, and then Sam and Cas drag him back to the house.

Everything the police will need is there; the tapes (Dean grabs his own, and has Cas use his grace to wipe down any fingerprints, DNA, whatever trace they might have left behind), the bodies…. Dean finds his own clothing neatly folded, with his gun and his car keys, in a kind of sick treasure trove in the basement, among with what he guesses are the clothes the other victims wore…

The last thing Cas does it to wipe Willard’s memory of the three of them, before Dean calls the cops from Willard’s own phone, and tells him he thinks he’s just seen a murder.

They’re gone by the time the police arrive, Sam driving, Dean trying to settle in the back seat of his car, with Cas following behind in his truck.

All the calm from before, there when he needed it, seems used up, and he feels like he’s going to shake apart.

Sam keeps looking at him through the rear view mirror, and he tries to grin through it but he can’t.

Sam’s phone goes, and Dean recognises the ringtone, hears Sam speaking in what’s not quite a whisper but pitched so Dean can’t make out the words.

They’re an hour from the town when the Impala pulls in to a motel, and Cas’s truck follows, parking up right alongside.

Dean watches, numb, as Cas opens the back door and gently guides Dean out and to his feet.

Sam’s back a moment later...Dean didn’t even realise he’d gone...with a room key, and between them they coax him inside.

There’s two big beds, and Cas pushes them easily together while Sam strips Dean down to his boxers, and then eases him into the centre.

Sam and Cas follow suit, and Dean really, only then, feels it hit him as they both hold him.

He lets it, can’t make it stop, and Sam is gently stroking his hair, and Cas whispering to him in Enochian and yes, he knows he’s safe, but….

He’s safe. He has his family with him, around him, and he is safe.

Finally, drained and worn through, Dean sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a fear of quicksand/drowning please be aware this story has Dean in that predicament.
> 
> Dean is also forced to watch a distressing video of the previous victims dying as additional psychological torment. 
> 
> And Dean bites part of his attacker’s ear off.
> 
> If you have your Wincestiel goggles on, the end can be taken as indicative of a relationship or just Dean receiving some much needed comfort.


End file.
